Ofsted

[Warbler]

Finally they come clean and admit teaching standards are shite

Was amused to hear Michael Wilshaw explaining that the biggest problem was "low level disruptive behaviour" he went onto single out symptoms

Arriving late
Whispering amongst themselves
Passing messages
Shouting out at teachers
Cheeky backchat

all of which was made worse by a chronic lack of senior leadership

Has he ever seen our politicians at work?

and the man who spurred us on,
sits in judgement of our wrong

 

[icebreaker]

Are there any demographic and/or social conclusions to be drawn about the spread/concentration of the local authority areas with "less than 50%" of good schools in their areas?

 

[Warbler]

Don't know, but I'm not sure that Local Authorities are a factor in education much these days

I'd imagine Nicky Morgan might be pulling Wilshaw in sometime and reminding him that if he wants to continue to head up OFSTED then putting out reports 6 months before an election that tells voters that the education that their children are receiving is worse than it was 2 years ago, ain't a good career move for him. Basically it looks like the 'academy' programme is in the cross-hairs and been found to be failing

I suspect this is a tip of an iceberg actually, as I'm certainly noticing stories appearing in sub menu now with much greater frequency concerning a whole series of financial irregularities at these academies. What seems to be happening is that the private sector providers have taken the government subsidy, who have then passed a smidge of it onto the school in return for them signining (not always in some cases, they've promised and not delivered the investment) and then set about robbing the asset sheet blind (usually with a headteacher in collusion). It reminds me of the drip feed that failing private sector residential care homes were running up in the media. In itself these stories aren't headlines, but you seem to see one every week or two now. I suspect there's a major scandal going unreported in our schools, and for all the money that these private sector providers were supposed to sink in, for standards to have fallen in the past 2 years is pretty damning of something - what?

 

[icebreaker]

Don't know, but I'm not sure that Local Authorities are a factor in education much these days

Well it strikes me from the national breakdown of figures that demographics play a major part.
Most of the local authority areas with "lower than 50% good schools" are north of the Watford Gap ( with the one exception of Isle of Wight whose figure is so truly bad that other factors must be at play).
This would suggest that it is in areas of lower family annual income that that the poorly performing schools are situated. Then you take into account that the report states that the biggest problem in these schools was the low-level disruptive behaviourof pupils........................... and things start falling into place. I'm making what might be seen as a generalisation here, but, from experience I would say that lesser behaved children come from poorer families than from middle-class or higher families.

 

[Maruco]

The problem is as basic as basic can be. And a large part of the answer is to look at the root cause of the problems instead of diving in halfway through.

Some teachers just aren't equipped to be teachers and never will be whatever training or frameworks they're given. And in general teachers just aren't taught the right techniques to deal with disruptive kids.

The same goes for headteachers and senior teachers. Too many just shouldn't be in the job which should have been identified up front.

Whilst there are no silver bullets, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a teacher who can combine basic disciplines with personality and charisma has a far better chance of gaining respect and can therefore control a classroom environment, rather than a weak-minded teacher who doesn't have the natural and trained skills to cope. They are also far more likely to give a **** as opposed to others who resent their job and naturally will not perform to the same level.

 

[moehat]

I know I'm biased but my daughter is one of the best history teachers you will ever find. She's leaving teaching next week after 15 years at an inner city comp. Last week a fight broke out in her class which left some of the children quite traumatised. She is excellent at controlling classes; it in the blink of an eye and without warning. She's got two more days teaching and I just hope [unlike the teacher that was stabbed the other year] she finishes the job in one piece. Some of the children have no interest in learning no matter how good the teacher is. I don't know what the answer is but I think it's a problem with society in general and a total lack of respect towards adults and their peers. She loves teaching and it's breaking her heart to walk away from it.

 

[Warbler]

That's the conclusion I've come to Paul. GCSE generation teachers who are now teaching GCSE having qualified to teach at the University of Chipping Sodbury

I know it was massive issue we had in Oxford as we chronically under performed nationally and couldn't work out why. I tended to blame the LEA in this case as they were the only common factor - but even then, the schools were just about funded, and you would have expected some of them to rise to the position they should have occupied. Oxford was in the bottom decile on just about every measure and barely had a single socio economic negative indicator running against it - t'was a puzzle

My sister is one these teachery types whose job it is to monitor and improve (think it's called performance and assessment) and she's of the view the calibre has dropped alarmingly in the last decade. Can't be arsed is a common thread. They can't be bothered to mark books and would prefer to switch off at 4.00pm (the myth of their self styled 65 hour week etc - not that anyone ever believed that)

The other thing she says is that the moment you start a disciplinary action against one they'll go off on stress and you're a staff member down. I have pointed out to her that you can actually sack someone for repeated non-attendance on medical grounds if they're no longer deemed capable of doing their job, but somewhat bewlideringly she thinks you can't! I did say they'd find that the inability to pay the mortgage, take their two foreign holidays a year, and a change their car every 3 will be a cite more stressful and they'll soon get over it when they realise that the doctor can't save them

 

[Maruco]

I know I'm biased but my daughter is one of the best history teachers you will ever find. She's leaving teaching next week after 15 years at an inner city comp. Last week a fight broke out in her class which left some of the children quite traumatised. She is excellent at controlling classes; it in the blink of an eye and without warning. She's got two more days teaching and I just hope [unlike the teacher that was stabbed the other year] she finishes the job in one piece. Some of the children have no interest in learning no matter how good the teacher is. I don't know what the answer is but I think it's a problem with society in general and a total lack of respect towards adults and their peers. She loves teaching and it's breaking her heart to walk away from it.

Such a shame Moe. The teaching profession can't afford to be losing good teachers. And my view is that if this outbreak had even been a possibility it should have been managed before it happened.

You're right though, the problems usually start away from school and very often at home. The reality is though, even the worst kids can still identify with and respect a teacher if the relationship is right. The problem is if the respect goes, and often it would have gone much earlier in a previous year with a previous teacher, possibly multiple teachers and perhaps as early as primary stage. It's very difficult (but not impossible), even for the best teacher to fundamentally change a behaviour in the classroom environment. And typically, good teachers usually have to spend considerable time very early in a school year dealing with problems previously caused by previous poor classroom and individual student managment.

In the worst cases, which you cite, surely any severe behavioural issues should already have been recognised and dealt with, or at least the risk of it happening should have been reduced. I'm guessing your daughter wasn't receiving the necessary support from the schools' management team, and little was done to mitigate in advance? Should the student(s) have even been in the class at the point this happened?

 

[Maruco]

My sister is one these teachery types whose job it is to monitor and improve (think it's called performance and assessment) and she's of the view the calibre has dropped alarmingly in the last decade. Can't be arsed is a common thread. They can't be bothered to mark books and would prefer to switch off at 4.00pm (the myth of their self styled 65 hour week etc - not that anyone ever believed that)

Absolutely. My wife is a teacher, an excellent one at that, and this has so often been her experience. Too many teachers are doing a job they either don't care about or fundamentally dislike. She's just about to start a new job at a failing school and she's one of those weird creatures that's looking forward to it. She can confidently walk in there knowing exactly how she will make the necessary difference. I've never understood how she does it because she's being trying it with me for 25 years and still fails!

In her case the self-styled 65 hours a week is actually true and I encourage it at every possibly opportunity. In fact when she's thinks she's finished I usually make a suggestion or two as to how she may be able to improve a lesson plan or two. Not that I'm really interested but it gives me significantly more time to watch sport on the TV!

 

[Maruco]

One other addition to the debate.

Payscales for teachers are also a problem. The teaching payscale is based on time served rather than ability, although I understand technically an annual rise can be withheld if performance is deemed to be below standard. In reality this rarely happens though.

Payscales should absolutely be about performance. I'd much prefer standard teaching payrates, and learn from industry where a bonus is paid on performance. By that I don't mean finite results, I mean measured by improvement year on year. To do so it would mean getting away from the soft grading based on coursework where a teacher marks it to suit themselves as well as the child. Controlled exams are the only true measure of performance of the child and the teacher.

The argument against of course is it puts too much pressure on students, which quite frankly is a nonsense if the measurement is improvement. If low-level examination happens each term, with more substantive examination at the end of a school year kids are naturally more likely to be desensitised to exams and better prepared to handle them when the important ones come around.

My wife disagrees with this. Her specialism is 'gifted and talented' so she naturally leans more towards individual child management and continual assessment. My problem with is that continual assessment with 30 kids is liable to inaccuracy, can lean towards favourites or the opposite, and still leaves the problem of teachers assessing to make themselves look better.

My broad view is if the teacher isn't up to the task how can the kids be. And this is the heart of the problem. Not the only one admittedly, but given 95% of the time in primary education is spent with one teacher, a poor teacher can have a profoundly negative effect on the schooling of a child forevermore. The brighter ones will get away with it, the disruptive ones will continue not to care and probably get worse, and the ones in the middle inevitably get left behind and under-perform.